Senate Committee Reports Against Reinstating Ilse Koch Sentence; Says Army Erred

The Army made a grave mistake in reducing from life to four years the sentence of Ilse Koch, wife of the former commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and notorious war criminal in her own right, but to reinstate the sentence would violate the democratic principles of “juridical finality,” the Senate Investigating Subcommittee said in a report here today. The Subcommittee has conducted an investigation of the Army’s reduction of the Koch sentence since the Army action, taken on June 8, became known in October.

Calling the case “an isolated blemish on the vigilance and certainty” of democratic principles of justice, the Subcommittee charged the Army with the duty of furnishing to German courts all possible assistance should the German courts decide to try Frau Koch for crimes against German nationals. The Army has already indicated, the Subcommittee reported, that no further crimes could be found on which they could retry her without putting her in double jeopardy.

The report stated the Subcommittee’s belief that not only were the charges against Frau Koch justified by the record but that there were “no persuasive mitigating evidence in the record to justify any reduction of sentence.” Aside from the reduction of the sentence itself the Army’s greatest mistake was their failure to make a public announcement of the reduction of sentence, setting forth their reasons, as soon as the action was taken. “Nothing so quickly arouses the public to the belief of possible impropriety as concealment,” they pointed out.